Unlock Your Brain’s Full Potential

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26:08you talk a lot about intuition and sort of gut feeling and I want to just go back to something that you said and and understanding how our brain works around this idea of fear because how do you know or how do you tell the difference between a fear that is protecting you and something that's holding you back because our brain is doing some good work right it's like stay away from that fire over there that's going to hurt you so like what what are the what are the differences and how do we learn to tell the difference like when when do I know to override what my brain might be telling me it's a really good question and it and there it's quite a subtle one so I actually like to use slightly different words that are often used interchangeably so intuition and instinct and those two those two things are different because I think I probably mix them up I think everyone I I think my instinct and my intuition are the same things, I think.

27:01Yeah, I would think that. And my gut feeling. I'll just put the whole lot together. I would think that too. Set us straight, please. I mean, I think, again, you know, you could choose the words that you use, but it's important to have a different word for your intuition, which is your wisdom that can guide you really positively. And an instinct or shortcut that's there to protect you, but actually, you know, might be fear-based. so I mean the easiest one is when your intuition isn't coming from fear and you know it's a really positive one like yeah I'm going to take that leap I'm going to do that that's an easier one to follow but there's one caveat to that that I'll come back when it's fear-based you can tell but that's when you either have to ask yourself is this fear-based for a good reason I shouldn't take a risk or is it fear-based and actually I need to learn how to override this.

27:56If you can't do it for yourself, speaking to someone that you trust is always helpful. If you're learning the skill of being able to do it for yourself, it's often really useful to think, well, what would I say to my best friend or my sister? Oh, I love that. If she came to me with this issue. And if you're able to take that one level of perspective away from being kind of in the mix of the emotions yourself, you may be able to come up with the answer yourself. There's another exercise I really love, which is if I'm sitting here now, I would say, you know, I'm Tara, I'm this age, I'm dressed like this.

28:28This is the dilemma that I'm facing. And then I get up and I walk seven steps forward and I turn around and I look at where I was sitting and I say, I'm Tara. And I say the age that is seven years older than I am. And then I say, this is the answer to your dilemma. And I just take it from my intuition, but it's me seven years in advance. Wow. I love that. Usually when I do this, which, and I, you know, I keep it for really special occasions and I've shared it with some of my closest friends. It actually makes you cry. Really? Because your intuition is actually so beautiful. And like, if you can just step away from yourself and all of the self-doubt and the, you know, kind of negative talk, there's actually a really beautiful guiding light in you that you can get access to when you just step out of yourself for a second.

29:19Why is it so hard for people to listen to their intuition, do you think? You know, you've obviously been extremely fortunate in the way that you've been brought up by your mum. But a lot of people have suffered criticism and ridicule and been diminished as a child. And that gets ingrained into your brain and it stays there and it runs a lot of your life without you even realising. So again, if you can separate yourself from that voice and realise that, you know, maybe that's a person that in your childhood that didn't big you up and make you feel like you can do anything and be the best version of yourself.

29:53Then when you do have a negative self-thought, if you say that's actually not my voice, that's the voice of that person that didn't believe in me, that's again, another way of kind of separating yourself from this. Can you strengthen your intuition? Like, is it something if you feel actually, I never listen to my intuition because I don't feel like it's there. Like, can you actually, is there a way to strengthen intuition? Yes. So I think journaling is a really good way. So when you have, and this is the caveat that I wanted to come back to, when you have a dilemma and your intuition and your logic aren't aligned, people will feel safer going with their logic.

30:30Like that's the sensible thing to do. That makes, you know, rational sense. Oh, I think I'm the opposite to that. So am I. I would never go against my intuition. Even if the logic stays different, I'm like, no, I'm all intuition. But we've both learned to trust that. So let's speak to the person that hasn't learned to trust that yet. So I think I was naturally intuitive. So I wasn't starting from a zero place, but I decided to hone it through neuroplasticity, which is the ability that we all have to change and learn and grow. So I would write down in my journal every time I had a decision to make where logic and intuition weren't aligned.

31:05And what I encourage people to do is starting in a low risk decision try going with your intuition even if logic doesn't you know it doesn't run by your logic and just see how that pans out yeah and then write write down what happened keep doing this give yourself that evidence that when I go with my intuition it actually works out better and then take it to like a slightly higher risk situation and just keep learning and growing I think reading back over your journal entries and seeing when you did and didn't go with your intuition Yeah, it's really I mean, I find reading back over my journals, probably one of the best tools that I have because it's the truth.

31:46You know, there's no room for messing around in your own journal. If you are, then that's a whole different problem. But, you know, it's like it's an accurate account of actually what happened. And you can go back and look at what you were feeling, why you did something and you can make changes. Like I go in and I kind of star and I'm like, that is something I didn't need. Like I'm going to purposefully do that differently next time. And it's kind of like what you're saying, this idea of standing up, going seven years in your future and talking back to yourself. It's like a way of like, it's almost like future journaling.

32:20That's a really interesting paradigm, actually. Yeah. I bet it works. I'm going to try that. It really works. I bet it works. There's another thing that I only discovered through a documentary filmmaker, which was a letter to yourself at a different age. So you literally, you pick a number out of a hat or you open a book to a certain page. And then whatever that number is, and it could be anything from zero to 100, you write a letter to yourself at that age. I was asked to be part of this documentary as a neuroscientist, but then I decided to do the letter as well. I watched the documentary, I did the letter.

32:58And again, what really comes out is that we have this beautiful guiding light in us, but most of the time we're just too busy. So why do you think that we have undervalued emotions and intuition? And can you just, I guess my question is, how does reconnecting with your intuition make you a better decision maker? Big question. So basically, if we go back to our evolution, there was a time that we had the limbic system, which is the more intuitive sort of primal part of our brain. And we had a very, very thin outer cortex. the outer cortex is the more rational part of the brain and it includes the part of the brain where we can articulate speech.

33:45So up until that point, we couldn't speak, but we could grunt and we could gesture and we could make cave art, but we couldn't speak. Once we could speak, so I call it the cognitive revolution, and it's to do with the fact that we made fire and then we could cook meat so we could eat more protein more efficiently, then our guts shrank and the outer cortex of the brain grew. once you could speak that was the quick you know the most efficient way of kind of telling you what I'm what I mean and so you would then pay less attention to my body language my my micro muscular facial expression the impact of like the hormones I'm experiencing that you could potentially share either through our menstrual cycles or through stress so so we literally evolved there and we've then undervalued the things that actually got us there.

34:33And then if you fast forward, obviously, to now, there's technology, there's data. I would say up until 30 years ago, before we had really sophisticated scanning technology, logic was just put on a pedestal and emotions and intuition were really, it was questioned whether they even really were tangible. Now that we can scan healthy brains, because a lot of neuroscience was just based on what happens when something goes wrong, like as a stroke or a brain tumor. Now that we can scan healthy brains, we can actually see what happens when you experience certain emotions and how that changes your decision making.

35:07And we can see that intuition is actually a tangible thing. I'm hopeful that, you know, that's changing in a positive way, particularly now with the very sharp rise in AI and chat GPT and stuff. I think going back to what makes us human is going to be more important than ever. I couldn't agree with you more. And I really want to touch on that. But something that you said is very interesting. So you're talking about we can train our intuition simply by using it, by trying to use it and getting higher and higher stakes about that. So that is like rewiring the way that we think. And when you talk about neuroplasticity, I really want to understand that a little bit more.

35:48I see myself as someone who is always in learning mode. I was terrible at school. And so I've had to do all of my learning once I got out of there. But some of us feel more ability to learn than others. And I'm not just talking about, you know, things that are useful in our professional lives. I'm talking about like even thinking about how you rewire yourself to have less negative thinking, for example. I want to understand the science and how our brains work. and if we all have the ability to learn all the time. Yeah. Or as well as others. Yes. So neuroplasticity is this ability of the brain to grow and change throughout life.

36:29And we used to think that by the time you were about 18 and you stopped physically growing, that your brain became fixed. This was like accepted as facts in neuroscience and neurology. Since we've had that sophisticated scanning technology, we can see that the brain actively grows and changes until we're about 25. But from 25 onwards, if you force your brain to learn things and you seek novelty and you're curious, then the brain can remain really flexible or what we call plastic in science terms. So if you think about your kids from zero to two, they went from being completely helpless and vulnerable and not able to do anything for themselves to walking, talking, being able to control their bladder and bowels.

37:11I mean, it's unbelievable. Unbelievable. Watching children at that age is just like a miracle. It really is. Yeah. And then in teenage, there's quite a lot of pruning of the brain to make it sophisticated enough to live an adult life, you know, to be social, to find a partner, to reproduce. And that goes on for longer than we used to think. It goes on till about 25, which actually kind of explains why children stay often quite financially dependent on their parents till older than 18. You know, It used to be like, give your 18-year-old a briefcase and send them out into the world. Not so much.

37:46Not so much. And then after that, look, you know, if you married your childhood sweetheart and you've got a job for life that you actually quite like, and that stability is good for you, fine. You know, you'll plateau. Your brain won't shrink, but it won't grow. But if you want to improve the highest functions of your brain, what we call the executive functions, things like being able to think flexibly, think creatively. solve complex problems, access your intuition, override your biases, then you do need to be engaging in some form of learning. It doesn't need to be formal. It can be the fact that you travel and you meet people who think really differently to you.

38:26It can even be things like take a different, you know, way to work so that you just maybe like see a different building or a sculpture or something. But I have to say that things like learning a language or learning a musical instrument, they are so intense for your brain that it really forces your brain to change and grow. And like I said, you don't just get the benefits of learning Spanish, you get other benefits in your brain by continually learning. And do you think that, I mean, I've always thought that just for myself, you know, I'm interested in learning, but do you think there are other reasons to continue learning?

39:05Like, I mean, when I say that, I mean, are there more social reasons that you should continue to learn or is it just about, you know, self-realization? No, there's definitely other reasons. So because when you learn something, it's probably like quite a specific thing. But by keeping your brain flexible, you're also going to improve things like resilience, creativity, access to your intuition. Yeah, it's basically the difference between doing kind of having all your days being quite the same for long periods of time to being open to change because that's going to make you more of a healthy risk taker as well, right?

39:47And makes you more successful because the more open to change you are, the better. And I think that a lot of us are kind of kidding ourselves around this AI piece of life right now thinking, well, I've got to be really open to the change, but I'm interested to understand how you think this revolution in AI is going to impact our brains right now. Are you, are you next? Really small question for you. Well, because I think that, look, from where I come from, you know, I can't hide from AI, right? It's like I'm a business person and I need to make sure that I fundamentally understand AI as it relates to my businesses.

40:22I'm a mother of four. I want my kids to, you know, to embrace AI and to think about how, what they're learning at school and what is the usefulness of what they're learning at school and how do you need to supplement that. There's also this huge worry that I have that I'm not thinking deeply in some ways that I would usually because maybe I'm going to chat GPT that thing or maybe I'm going to use one of these really sophisticated programs to do the work for me in areas where usually I might well have had to sit down for 20 minutes and have a think. So I just wanted to understand where your opinion is on it.

40:56Okay. I mean, it's going to be a huge adjustment. I think we've kind of known it's coming for a while. I actually did a TEDx talk in 2015 about the future of humanity with AI and whether we would become like hybrid robots and stuff. I look back now. I'm going to look that up. Honestly, it amazes me that I knew all that stuff then because I feel like I know less now. But also in the last two years, the rate of change of technology has really like gone exponential. so it's not going away we do have to accept that it is going to completely change the way that we we live and work trying to stay up to date with it and understanding it is really important but I think the bigger question is what is it about myself that's going to still be of value what can I do that chat GPT can't and I have to say that's becoming scarily smaller and smaller but one of the things that I researched for my new book was, is art what makes us human?

41:57Big question. Big question. And I found out some really beautiful things. So we know that we made cave paintings and we like danced and told stories. And we sort of think that cave paintings are the first evidence of humans making art. But actually before that, we adorned ourselves. We carved into like ostrich eggshells and stuff. But way before that, we made tools that were more beautiful and symmetrical than they had to be to do their job. So there is this innate love of beauty and this wish to be creative that's very much part of human existence. And I think things like that and intuition are where we need to turn our attention.

42:40Right. I think I've heard you talk a little bit about creativity and how important it is for us to embrace creativity with some kind of regularity in our lives. Yeah. I mean, there's this incredible statistic, which is that if you engage in the arts and culture every two months, so six times a year, then your risk of dying goes down by 40%. No, it doesn't. If you only go twice a year, your risk of dying goes down by 14%. And there are so many free like sculpture parks and galleries. That's the way I'm getting my kids to the galleries then. You're going to die basically. You have to come here with me or you'll die.

43:18That's a crazy statistic. Why is that? I just think we don't understand how beneficial these things are to our mental health, our physical health and our longevity. And there's this new area of research called neuroaesthetics, which is about art and beauty and creativity and how it contributes to our health and all those aspects. And yeah, that's why I asked this question, is art what makes us human? Because I think we've kind of undervalued how important that and nature. Nature is an art form. And I love that you put those two things together because for so many of us, I mean, I don't think I'm artistically talented in any way, shape or form, but I do feel this deep connection to nature.

44:01And I love that you're able to put those two things together. And it is, you know, in so many ways when we, certainly when I'm busy and overwhelmed, they're the first things to go, right? It's like, I'm not taking a two hour walk outside if I can barely fit my work in. And I'm certainly, you know, cancelling a play that I was supposed to go and see if, you know, something is going off with my kids. You know, it's just they are the things that just leave your schedule. But you're saying quite the opposite. We need those things to keep our brains well and to keep us alive quite literally. Literally.

44:36I mean, nature is the palette that we've existed in since the beginning of humanity. So it's primarily a place that we feel awe and wonder and it really like rejuvenates like all of our hormones and everything. I mean, if you walk past certain trees, they release chemicals called phytoncides that actually trigger the release of natural killer cells in your immune system. So when I'm hearing you say, I'm not going to go for a two hour walk when I'm like completely slammed at work, that's when I need you to go more than ever. And maybe it doesn't have to be two hours. Maybe it could be half an hour.

45:10Worst case scenario, if you have to take your laptop and go and do your emails, but do them in a park rather than in the office. And also, bird song lowers your stress levels and your blood pressure because birds only sing when there are no predators around. So even though it's... That's such a joyful thing to think about. Makes you feel safe. The next time I hear tweet, tweet, tweet, I'll think about it so differently. That's so interesting. So tell me, for you in your life, how do you bring the arts? into your life? Because I'm sure as people are listening to this, they're like, how? Like, how is that going to actually work?

45:45Yeah. So for me, I absolutely love the ballet. It's like my favorite thing in the whole world. So I try to go to that as frequently as I can. But the other thing is that, so you said you're not, you don't think you're artistically talented. No. Your aesthetic says that it doesn't matter if you're good at it or not, you still get the same benefits. But isn't that such a mindset thing of me thinking because I'm not good at it, then I shouldn't really bother doing it. And you're saying the absolute opposite. It doesn't matter because A, I'd probably be in learning mode, which is good for my brain.

46:15And B, I'd be giving myself the, you know, the arts and the culture and that side of things that I really need for my survival and my health. And it's both making and beholding. So you can go to the ballet or you can dance around your living room. You can, you know, go and listen to a band or you can sing in the shower. So yeah, I think that's, those are small areas I would love to see people like bringing in to their life. But these things are habits, aren't they? And I feel like getting the right habits that support a healthy brain, that support you, you know, you don't say not being stressed.

46:50What do you say? Something else, which is so much nicer. Being emotionally regulated. Emotionally regulated, which is so much nicer.

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48:41I want to talk to you a little bit about people at the start of their careers and thinking about habits and thinking about what you do and what you carry to create long-term success. Can you talk to me a little bit about the right habits for long-term success? I have to reiterate the foundational ones that I think are really important, that you can't achieve success if you don't have these things right. And they are sleep, eating right, being hydrated, not being sedentary, doing some form of exercise and managing your stress. So I've spoken about all of those things a lot before, so I don't need to deep dive into those ones, but I just need to remind us all.

49:25They are the foundational things that all of us have to do. But I wonder if there are other things that have an outsized impact on your success and happiness once you've got the foundational things. Exactly. So once you've got those in place, then the things that come after that to like really set you up for success are being very tuned into your senses. So not acting like your body is just the vehicle that takes your brain around from meeting to meeting, but being very embodied, having that brain body connection is like hugely advantageous because of course when it is your career logic is going to predominate but actually there are this is a simple kind of you know metaphor but if we think about six ways of thinking there's physicality emotion logic creativity motivation and intuition right and physicality is quite an easy one to actually tune into, but also easy to ignore.

50:19So people who do a lot of sport or exercise tend to be better at acknowledging biofeedback from their bodies. Like, you know, what's my body telling me when I get butterflies in my stomach? What's my body telling me when I get goosebumps? And then equally applying that to what am I picking up from your body language that could help me, you know, inform me to be just to have that edge over everybody that you're competing with to be successful in your career. Honing your intuition, I would definitely say is another one. Spending that time in nature to be and to reflect rather than constantly multitasking and like listening to a podcast or listening to music, like actually having some time is a really essential way of managing your stress.

51:01And then I think a really, really important one that people underestimate as well is your tribe or your community. So who is around you? Because that's pretty much a reflection of what you're going to be and achieve. So if the people around you are successful in the way that you want to be successful, it's more likely that you'll achieve that. If the people around you are not supportive of, you know, your values and goals and purpose, that's probably going to drag you down. So I would say the senses and physicality, honing your intuition, the benefits of nature, and the importance of who's in your community.

51:43Those are like the highest things to think about in terms of achieving whatever form of success, you know, that means for you. God, that's so interesting. I want to dig into this idea of the community that you have around you, because for so many people, they have an idea about themselves and what they want, but their circumstances, where they come from, where they live means that they're perhaps not surrounded by the type of people that they might want to. And I definitely think growing up, for me, that was for sure the case. So what do you say to people that don't feel like they have the right people around them?

52:22Like, is that really holding them back? And can they be successful anyway? What do you do? What do you do, Dr. Tartt? Like, what do you do? Yeah. So there's something called social contagion, which is that big themes of things like divorce and obesity are catching in a group. Now, of course, I'm not saying if your friend gets divorced, then dump them because you're going to get divorced. But I think what I am saying is if you think of a rosebush, it benefits from getting pruned to allow new flowers to blossom. And I also mentioned that in the teenage brain, some neural pathways get pruned out so that you can thicken the pathways that you need to succeed as an adult.

53:10Later in life, when people can experience things like they don't remember the sequence that events happened in, but their pathways for wisdom and judgment and decisiveness become super honed. So when people start to say to me, oh, I'm not remembering things like I used to, and that means my brain's declining, I say, focus on this positive that you have. And I come from a culture where older people are really revered. So I've always actually kind of, you know, really respected and wanted that wisdom that will come later in life. And, you know, that's, again, a way of looking at things which is quite counter to the cultures that we're in, where getting old is seen as bad.

53:51So the way that I want to put it, you know, as nicely as I can, is that in the same way that I curate my social media feed, because I know how much impact it's having on my brain, I need to have people around me that have the same values and purpose and goals or, you know, are aligned with me and the things that are important to me, like spirituality. And if over time that diverges for people, that's okay. Like you can just let them go, wish them well. It's not about, you know, dumping or ghosting or like taking it personally. It's just that we're all on a journey. We're all continually growing and changing and it is really important from a neuroscience point of view who you have around you how they talk to you how much psychological safety they give you and you know what you contribute to them so I think it is important to examine that yeah and I would I would go a step further with that because I feel like certainly as a leader there's a responsibility that you have to the people that are around you in the way that you behave, right?

54:59Like I know if I come into the office in the morning and I go, morning everyone, which I do every single day. And I give people eye contact and I look at them and I smile. Like immediately it changes the energy of the room. It changes the energy of a meeting when you walk in that way. And I don't know that we all have that you talk about brain body connection but that awareness of how much you're impacted by other people and other people are impacted by you and I think we probably do well to understand that a little bit more yeah and as a leader your behavior and your stress levels have more impact on the team than they do on each other it's like the silverback gorilla his stress levels affect um the troop of gorillas more I know my team will be laughing as you say that right there.

55:49But it is true. It is true. It is true. And we can pick up, I guess, in that same way that the positivity can be transferable and have a big impact. I'm sure that the negative side of things, it has the same effect. I mean, we all know when we've been around someone who's highly stressed and kind of emanating that stress, it has an effect on us. Well, if you think back to what I said about that negative gearing of the brain being two and a half times stronger than the positive one, stress actually has more of an effect than the positive feeling. And it's more physiological because the effect of your tone of voice and your smile and your eye contact can affect people's oxytocin levels, but that's within their own system.

56:31But the effects of your stress, particularly if you're suppressing it, so you're trying not to show it, but you've got high levels of cortisol in your system, that actually leaks out of your skin and goes into the skin of other people around you and artificially raises their cortisol levels no it doesn't yeah yeah as a leader more so like actually comes out of my skin into somebody else's in the atmosphere goes into their skin and raises their stress oh i just don't think people understand that no i mean they definitely don't understand that because you know somebody comes in with a cough or a sneeze next to me i'm like go home like don't just leave the office i don't want that around me But in the same way, if somebody came around me with a lot of stress, I'd kind of, there's no way I would tell them to go home.

57:17When in actual fact, I probably should because their stress is leaking all over everybody else and making the workplace bad. Yeah. And when they're stressed, one of the things that the brain does when it recognizes high levels of cortisol all the time is that it goes into what I call low power mode. So the blood flow around your brain goes to the parts of your brain that you literally need to survive, but not to the parts of your brain that you use to flourish, to think outside of the box, to be really productive and creative. That's why presenteeism costs businesses way more than absenteeism.

57:53Can you, can you, presenteeism, what is that? And presenteeism is when you're in that survival mode. So you make sure you come in and you sit at your desk so you don't lose your job, but you can't actually be really productive. Yeah, I mean, I understand that. I have a very different philosophy. You know, I really strongly believe that when people are going through things outside the workplace, you break up with a boyfriend, you had a terrible, like it's, nothing is right unless you come in with the right frame of mind. I would rather somebody just be honest and say, I'm really not in the right frame of mind for work today.

58:28I'm going to skip. And it's like, that is totally fine. It would cost your business. It's totally fine because I truly believe that it's better that you're not there. It's going to cost me more than if you stay at home, figure your things out and come back to me when you're fresh in a couple of days. But that isn't the, you know, common wisdom, I guess. So how do you train leaders to have more awareness around what they're putting out? What are the tips that you give people? Well, when I first started coaching, which was around the time of the financial crisis, people were still like going red in the face and yelling at people.

59:01I was kind of like, this is not okay. But nobody had an idea that that wasn't okay back in those days. Because, I mean, that's how I came up in the workplace with people that were allowed to literally scream in your face. Yeah, and make you cry. All the time, like all the time. It was normal. Path of destruction behind them. Yes, yes. It's more subtle now. but you know I do teach people about the mechanism of this hormone cortisol how it works when we're stressed and how that can show up in the body because it can show up as weight gain particularly around your center because when the brain is sensing these high levels this is terrible for me this is so like the last person no but there's only one piece of like you know stubborn weight on my body and of course it's around the abdomen and I make excuses well I had babies I have children, but I have a perfect diet and I exercise perfectly.

59:51And that is just a big pile of cortisol induced stress around my abdomen. Yes, it is. I mean, I'm wearing skims, so you would never know. But that's the truth. That is stress. It's loud and clear. I'm really upset. I'm deadly upset. No, I know that I could, I'll show you later. If you want me to prove it to you, I will. So give me, if I were to say to you, what are the top five things that as an executive coach, that are the biggest takeouts from everything that you teach, what would they be? Like, forget the fundamental things. Like, what are the things that we could all do that we're probably not thinking about?

1:00:33Learning to build your resilience to stress. So mental resilience is like, that's the area, that's my niche with leaders. Inevitably, like you, you are very busy. you travel a lot, you might be jet lagged a lot of the time. High intensity exercise may be very much part of the regime. It was intervals that I was told to do by my trainer, yes. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, just kind of, I work through what I call micro habits, because it's too much to come to someone like you and say, this is one big thing that you need to change, like starting from now. It's much better for me to work with you and say, okay let's identify in a year I would say let's identify 10 to 12 small things that you can change and we'll take the first three now for the first quarter of the year and we'll work on building those in as habits that become so natural to you that you don't even think about them anymore and then by the end of the year you would have 10 to 12 new micro habits that will accumulate to build your mental resilience.

1:01:36And then you'll be able to take on like bigger and, you know, more different things. Give me the top three. What would you tell me to do? I mean, they would be different for different people. But, you know, again, it's always really important for me to reiterate the foundation one. So, you know, are you getting eight hours of good quality sleep every night? No, Dr. Tarr. But then the micro tweak would be, can you go to bed half an hour earlier? Can you, you know, include the dimming of the lights as part of your wind down routine so that your sleep quality is better? Can you at least have a regular sleeping and waking time that you maintain throughout the week?

1:02:12And then, you know, are you drinking enough water? Let's look at the form of exercise that's actually going to get rid of that belly fat, which you don't have, but... I'm going to hit you up for that one. And then, you know, it sounds like I've already identified a few for you, which might be more time in nature, doing something a bit more creative, like it making the quality time that you want to spend with your family more to do with those sorts of activities. Yes, yeah.

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1:05:27From a neuroscience perspective, will you talk a little bit about purpose in your work and why that leads to more motivation and success? I feel like I am a person that, you know, and I feel deeply privileged, but for the last 10 years, I've been able to take what it is that I really believe and weave that into my businesses and they're my businesses. And so it just, you know, it's happened and it's been successful, but I know that for other people, it's a harder, for some reason, it feels like a harder sell. And I know that you have an opinion on this. Yeah. So purpose is really, really important.

1:06:05It makes everything less stressful and it drives the positive emotions that actually help you to achieve success. So when you've got purpose, you'll have higher levels of oxytocin, the bonding hormone that's associated with love, trust, joy, and excitement, and lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol that we've just spoken about. And so that means your whole system is more regulated and in balance because purpose kind of aligns with values. And that means that your head, your heart, and your gut are more likely to be aligned. So you're in harmony. And that makes every decision a little bit easier.

1:06:45So you're not even using up as many cognitive resources to fight decisions that don't feel right. It's actually also really important for people in terms of mental health and spirituality to have a purpose that transcends yourself. So it's not just about, I love my job and I make lots of money. There's something. We are doing something good here. Yeah. That's really interesting. And do you encourage people at a certain point in their career to think about purpose? Like, is it important when, you know, you've just graduated, you're coming out of college for your first job? Like, I just wonder where somebody gets to think about or when they get to think about purpose in their career.

1:07:26What I've seen in my experience with people is it comes up several times throughout life. So often for a reason that's not obvious, you just get to some points in life where you feel a little bit lost and directionless. And that's a really good time to reflect. It's, you know, life's brought that to you and given you a chance to reassess and, you know, sort of realign. Obviously, when you're young and starting out in your career, it's possible that that sense of purpose is going to change quite a lot in the future but it's good to just have an idea of you know what were the things you dreamed of as a child is your life starting to pan out like you really hoped it would and if not you know what are the factors that you might need to look at and change yeah I feel all of that it makes a lot of sense I wonder if there's something just from a personal point of view for you if there's like a mental habit that you had to learn that's made you the person that you are today?

1:08:27It's so interesting because I never know. It's very chicken and egg for me. So neuroplasticity is a very core part of my work. But equally, I've always been someone that loves to learn constantly and grow and change. And I literally don't know which came first. I'm just very lucky that my work and my life align. The latest thing that I've done that has been a real game changer for me has been what I call the art of noticing and particularly appreciation of beauty, which also comes from this neuroaesthetics research. And so I decided that for me, it's like next level gratitude. It has the same oxytocin boosting effect.

1:09:03Give me next level gratitude. I'm so ready for that. So I started just noticing the appreciating beauty, mostly in nature. So it started with the sort of, you know, autumn leaves that was like so red in London last autumn. And then it was the spring blossoms. Because of what I know about birdsong. I always really appreciate birdsong. And now so will we. Exactly. And, you know, if I see a beautiful building, I'll really actually stop and like notice it and feel that sense of awe that impressive architecture can bring. I love that you said, because I've always thought about myself and I say this so much that I'm someone who literally stops to smell the roses.

1:09:40Like, I'll be in a park with my kids and I have done that my whole life, like had a deep appreciation for things that I find mostly aesthetically beautiful. But, you know, it's like it's hardwired in me to like stop, take the moment, literally smell the rose, literally go like, look at this. We were looking at these like tree barks the other day. They were giant in the park and they were spiky and they looked insane. And my kids and I stopped and my eldest son was like, what are we doing? Like, we look insane. And I was like, no, this is incredible. It's so beautiful. Have you ever seen, you know, a tree trunk like that before?

1:10:15but if you're not that type of person those habits are really difficult like it's really hard for you to to have that moment of pause and appreciation but this comes down to like how present you are right isn't that like exactly the same thing like just overall having an appreciation and being in the moment and being present it's it's true but it's also a habit that you can learn so you know just like I learned gratitude practice by writing down or saying 10 things I'm grateful for every day for years until it became more natural with the appreciation of beauty. I mean, I would say I am quite a present and intentional person, but I certainly wasn't consciously appreciating beauty in the way that I have trained myself to do now.

1:10:58And it really didn't take that long. And like I said, it sort of, I suddenly noticed how many times I was acknowledging that something was beautiful. And I was like, oh, I've trained that habit. That's great. Well, you live in London as well. It's very beautiful. You're lucky because it's like absolutely all around you. There's a lot, yeah. Yeah, but I love that because again, I think so many of us understand the power of gratitude and once you do it for a little while, it's one of those ones that's so, it's so giving. Like you feel it after, I don't know, even a few weeks of being grateful every day.

1:11:30You start to notice and things come up in your day that you feel grateful for and you immediately can register that. And so you're saying that this appreciation of beauty is exactly the same. Exactly the same. And it's going to have the same level of positive effect on your life. I think it's more. I mean, I literally think life is so beautiful now. And what I do with gratitude now is I use it when I'm feeling low. And it changes my mindset so quickly. If you could boil what you know down to the kind of three or five things that everyone should really know about their brain, what would you say that those things are?

1:12:09What are the things that we should all be incredibly cognizant of? So your brain is a tiny part of your body weight, but it's a very energy-hungry organ. So it actually uses up 20 to 30 % of the breakdown products of what you eat. So when you're asleep, your brain is using up 20 % of your energy. When you're, you know, kind of like switched on and like working or being productive, then it's using up about 25 % of what you've eaten that day. and if you're stressed it's using up 30 percent so eating with a brain first approach is is going to have all the beneficial effects on the rest of your your health your physical health I don't know if this is like you you would count this as part of your answer but I think intuition is probably the greatest superpower that you can use by understanding your brain body connection because intuition obviously is held in the brain and the neurons, but intuition is basically wisdom that you've picked up in life, but you can't remember everything that you've experienced in life.

1:13:15So these patterns are pushed deeper into the brain and they become just like reflexes. You don't necessarily know why you make a certain decision, but it makes sense. And that information over time gets pushed deeper and deeper into the limbic system, the brainstem, the spinal cord, and your gut neurons, which is why, you know, it's sometimes referred to as gut instinct. but wisdom is also held in your body in your muscles through like the reactions that you've had to certain emotional things and now we've understood in the tissues of your body the fascia so actually doing something physical can help to unleash your hidden wisdom so that walk in nature or that you know dancing or drumming or humming these ancient practices are actually really good ways to get the most out of your brain and your body so yeah here's a little more quirky one so So sleeping on your side, left or right, but not your back or your front, is better for cleaning out the waste products from the brain overnight.

1:14:09Oh no, I'm a back sleeper. That's terrible. Sleeping on your side is much better. Yeah. I've got a side sleeper pillow. You could buy one. That makes you sleep on your side? No way. My goodness. Okay. Again, writing it down as you sleep. And why is it important? I mean, just again, while you sleep, I'm imagining like part of what's so great about when we sleep is that we are cleaning our brain out. We're giving ourselves a chance to like properly recuperate. But you're saying that happens more effectively when you sleep on the side. Yes, because we used to think it was a passive process and we didn't really know how it worked.

1:14:44But then in 2012, some Nobel science prize winning research showed that, you know, the lymphatic system in the body. Yes. There's a glymphatic system in the brain, which is, it's similar to the lymphatic system, but it's made up of glial cells. And there's an active flushing out of toxins that takes seven hours overnight. And it gets rid of the sort of toxins that build up due to the wear and tear of everyday life and stress. And they're the things that accumulate to become the pathology that creates dementia. Wow. So that's why it's so important to have a meaningful good seven hours or more of sleep, but also you can help that flushing a lot more if you're side sleeping.

1:15:29Yeah. Oh, wow. That is a really good one. I am purchasing that pillow immediately. And that's why I use the gua sha on my neck in the morning. For the, I mean, and again, I know so much about lymphatic drainage. It's like I have those massages and you feel and see and you know that benefit. But that's so interesting that the same system is essentially there for your brain. All right. I have one last question for you that I think is important. What is the one thing that you would want people to know about the power of their own brain? Yeah. So the main thing, which kind of encompasses everything that we've said, is that we are capable of so much more than we realize.

1:16:11We don't utilize all of our brain power and we don't kind of understand the benefits of kind of like the interconnections that can happen in the brain. So we tend to sort of be quite narrow in our focus and quite like in task mode. And there's actually a massive benefit to being in what's called default mode, which is the part where you let your mind wander and you like generate new ideas and you make connections between things that maybe you haven't had time to think of before. So if you put that together with some time in nature, then I think that's where people can really start to unleash their potential by just giving yourself time to just be and let your mind wander and taking that all from nature.

1:16:56I just guarantee that people will come up with ideas and ways to change their life that they just don't give themselves the time for. I am 100 % sure you are right. I mean, I always, I'm obsessed with the habits of highly successful people. And I remember watching something a while ago about Bill Gates and he takes a thinking week in nature. It's a tiny little cabin. He has a bunch of books, but no devices. Nobody's allowed to call him. And essentially exactly what you're saying. He allows himself to think and to process all of the information and everything that he's learned and to have that association with nature and just have a beautiful moment of the brain doing what the brain is supposed to do.

1:17:36Now, listen, I don't know that I can find a thinking week, but I could definitely find a thinking afternoon. Yeah. You know, just to let myself wander, as you say. That's a really bloody good tip. Okay. I want to know the first thing that you do in your day that primes your brain. Now, I do think I know the answer to this, but give me the most important thing that you do to prime your brain for the day. Gratitude practice. And then at the end of the day, I know you've got a big routine I need you to boil I have red light bulbs in my bedroom do you well I think we're gonna get it there Dr Tara okay girl for blue light blocking obviously obviously obviously um is there a book that changed your perspective?

1:18:32Yeah, it's a really old book called The Master Key System. I think it was written in 1927 or something. Wow. And it came out as a series of weekly newspaper columns, but then it got made into a book and there's an exercise that you do after each chapter, which it completely changed the way that I think and started me on the road of manifestation. Oh, wow. We are all running to buy that. But then I wrote The Source, which is like the modern day version of it. So we could also get that. Thank you very much. Yes, we'll note both of them. Tell me one belief that has rewired your brain and one that you've held on to, like a deeply held belief that you have.

1:19:13Well, I think learning about neuroplasticity, considering that when I was at medical school, we didn't think it existed. And that's changed in my career has obviously changed the way that I live my life and what I teach. Something that I've held on to, well, my dad said I was either going to be Tara or Maya. And when I was born, he just looked at me and said, she's definitely a Tara. And in Indian languages, Tara means star. And he always used to say to me, you're a star and like, only good things are going to happen to you. And so I've, yeah, I've held on to that since I was a little girl. Oh my God, I love that.

1:19:50What a lovely, what a lovely thing. It's so good when you have someone from an early age that really believes in you. Like it's everything. You're a star, like that would stay with you every day. Can I ask you, what are you really excited about professionally when you think about everything that you know and where you are in your career? And I don't know if, you know, 10 years ago, you saw yourself in LA doing the podcast circuit being so highly sought after for your work and your knowledge. What excites you now? I've actually just written a new book, which is coming out in September, and it's called The Signs, The New Science of How to Trust Your Instincts.

1:20:29And it is literally my life's work. I've poured my heart and soul into it. It's got everything in it that I believe in now, you know, about how I live my life, like how I understand the nature of consciousness, what I believe about the potential for humanity. I'm so happy that that's happening for you because again, I said to you, your work and what you teach and how you teach it more specifically, I find so beautifully refreshing because to me, you're like a, you know, you're a person that is grounded in all of this science. You have a beautiful, simplistic way of putting across these very deeply complicated ideas, especially for somebody like me, whose brain can just be scrambled by over-information.

1:21:15But I love the way you're teaching us to do something that feels a bit more spiritually connected. You know, when you talk about intuition and gut instinct and those things, like I know that's true. Like I don't need anybody to tell me that like the science behind it, because that's how I've lived my whole life. But I think for so many of us to be able to tap into that power, we do need a little bit more of the information and to understand how it really works. And so I love that you're bringing something that for my whole life, I've heard that, you know, people have signs and that people don't leave us when they die.

1:21:49And I think that for it to come from someone like you is very, very important. And especially in our culture at this point in time, it's really important that we can believe things that are beyond the tangible, you know. It's really, really important work. And I know all the work that you do is really important, but maybe this is your, you know, what do they call it? Like when you have like the biggest, fabulous, most moment in your life. It's that, that's the technical term for it. You're having the biggest, fabulous, most moment of your life. And I'm really happy for you because I think that your work is superb.

1:22:23And I'm super happy to have spoken to you today. Thank you. Thank you.

1:22:32if you're loving this podcast be sure to click follow on your favorite listening platform while you're there give us a review and a five-star rating and share an episode you love with a friend we'll be so grateful aspire with emma greed is presented by audycy i'm your host emma greed our executive producers are corinne gilead fisher derrick brown and me Our executive producers from Odyssey are Maddie Sprung-Kaiser, Leah Reece-Dennis, Asha Saluja, and Jenna Weiss-Berman. Stephen Key is our senior producer. Sound design and engineering by Bill Schultz. Angela Peluso is our booker. Original music by Charles Black.

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